Last July, we gave the sofa we inherited with our villa to a niece setting up her first apartment ~ pick up, not delivery.

At Thanksgiving, we delivered the matching loveseat to her as a hostess gift.

That left us with a sizable gap in the middle of our living room.

Consistent with my guiding philosophy (“do what you can, with what you have, where you are”), we filled the gap with deck chairs as a temporary fix . . . until we got ready to shop.

Have I ever told you how much I hate shopping?

I decided we would go shopping AFTER Christmas . . . just in case Santa dropped the sofa of my dreams down the chimney we don’t have.

He didn’t.

I then decided we would go shopping AFTER the Christmas decorations had been put away so as not to confuse the issue with seasonal clutter.

And we did just that. We went shopping . . .

AFTER January morphed into February.
AFTER Valentine’s Day came and went.
AFTER President’s Day sales flyers began to yellow with age.
AFTER Shrove Tuesday.
AFTER Ash Wednesday.
AFTER the Chinese New Year.
AFTER the dawn of Daylight Savings Time.

With the Ides of March and St. Paddy’s Day on the horizon, my sister asked whether I regretted consigning our previous sofa and loveseat to her daughter.

Nope. Giving them away created just the space and motivation I needed to muster up the enthusiasm for canvassing the shops.

As soon as I got good and ready.

On Friday the 13th, we launched ourselves into the market place of furniture showrooms ~ Highland Park, Hudsons, the Pink Pineapple.

No luck. We continued shopping ~ Badcock, La-Z-Boy.

We found a super comfy power recliner at La-Z-Boy but didn’t like its bulging bulky pillowy approach to living room decor.

We continued shopping ~ Rooms 2 Go, Casual Interiors.

At the latter, we experienced sticker shock from price tags that exceeded the cost of my first car by a significant margin. The only saving grace? Fuel economy would not be an issue.

We continued shopping ~ American Freight, Furniture Warehouse.

We test-drove sofas that looked great but felt like rocks. Who wants to watch TV perched atop a rock-hard rock? Not me.

We continued shopping . . . feeling more and more like Goldilocks in search of an elusive plate of perfect porridge.

I consulted our list. We still had piles of pillows to peruse ~ Pamaro Shops, American Signature Furniture, Baer’s, Kanes, etc..

Have I ever told you how much I hate shopping?

At last, on March 20th, after 14 showroom visits and 137 test drives, we found what we wanted at Manatee Furniture. Huzzah!

The salesman sealed the deal when he offered to deliver them that afternoon! Yes, please!

We raced home, dodging Friday afternoon beach traffic, to return the deck chairs to the deck and ready the space for our new “just right” sofa and loveseat . . . where we now recline happily-ever-after.

After we donated our extra refrigerator from the garage, the stuff inside our garage had fewer places to perch and became a bit jumbled and tumbled.

We had some green totes sitting high and dry and decided to put them into service as storage bins.

One problem, they wouldn’t fit on the flimsy shelf unit we’d inherited with the villa.

So we bought a sturdier shelving unit from Home Depot and BFF assembled it to accommodate the idle green totes.

Now we have a tidy place for everything to hide inside . . .

And can keep everything in its place . . .

Aah . . . that’s better!

I wrote and scheduled this post several days before the WP Daily Post issued the Weekly Photo Challenge ~ Inside. Note the uncanny similarity between their totes and ours. Spooky! All we’re missing is the baby!

Finding inner calm on calm days is beginner’s work . . . finding inner calm in the midst of chaos and confusion, amid a cluster of chaotic threads, lets us see how much progress we’ve made on the tangled tapestry of our life.

A few threads, recently unraveled:

Those who want adventure often must choose between safety and freedom.

When we are content as and where we are, we need not choose between freedom and (relative) safety. There is no universal mandate requiring us to “lose sight of the shore” or leave our comfort zone in order to feel free.

Perhaps freedom lies in wanting to be who, what, and where we already are.

I agree with the Dalai Lama . . . we are here to be happy. If we are happy where we are, pushing, stretching, pulling, tugging, and reaching for the next “brass ring” seems to be both a counter-productive and counter-intuitive practice.

Once the potatoes and onions were cooked, I reserved 2/3 of the base for the soup and hash browns, then added a bag of peas, some cooked brown rice, 2 tbsp. of curry powder, and 2 cups of vegetable broth to the slow cooker and set it to simmer, low and slow.

I served the fragrant and hearty Potato Curry for dinner last night with a sprinkling of peanuts and raisins on top. Yummy!

Today (a chilly day), Tattie Soup will be a hit for lunch and a breeze to fix: heat 4 cups of vegetable broth, add cooked potatoes, onions, carrots, and celery. Bring the mixture to a simmer. Smash the tatties with a hand masher. Done!